Requiem
by Joodiff
Summary: Post-"Waterloo". It's Boyd and Grace and a whole lotta angst. WARNING: character death. Complete. Enjoy!


**DISCLAIMER: **I own nothing.

**A/N:** _Er... major tissue warning for sensitive souls._

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><p><strong>Requiem<strong>

by Joodiff

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><p>"It's all right," I tell you quietly, but although your eyes are half-open, I'm really not sure you hear me. I'm not even sure you know I'm here next to you. I tighten my grip on your hand, but there's no answer in your fingers or in your eyes. It's breaking my heart, but I think you're beyond me now. They said it would be tonight, and I instinctively know they're right. You're pale, and your skin is cool. We're in the final moments, you and I. You're not going to see the dawn. It hurts to swallow, my throat's so constricted. I want to cry, but the tears don't come. They will. I know they will.<p>

They told me to keep talking to you, told me that you'd hear me even if there was no visible sign of it. I take a breath, a deep, painful breath, and I say the first stupid thing that pops into my head. "Do you remember the day we went to the zoo?"

It was a silly thing, the sort of thing young lovers do. I said we were far too old to be walking round Regent's Park holding hands, but you weren't having that. It didn't surprise me. We went to the zoo, and as we wandered together the other visitors kept giving us odd looks – I think they were looking for the non-existent grandchildren, wondering if we knew we were on our own. It amused you no end. It was a cool, autumn day, but thankfully the rain held off and eventually the sun broke through the clouds. We had an argument outside the aquarium. We can… could… argue just about anywhere, about just about anything. Half the time it never meant anything. It was just something we did. A 'feature' of our relationship.

Relationship. A single word that's supposed to be able to carry the entire weight and meaning of everything there is between us. Do you remember all the stupid disagreements we had about nomenclature? It took us far too long to find the right words to describe what we are to each other. _Everything_ took us far too long. Perhaps we shouldn't have been so cautious, so sensible. Perhaps we shouldn't have spent so long trying to deny what was apparently so obvious to everyone else. It's too late for regrets. Far, far too late.

I don't want to lose you. I'm not ready to lose you. I hate the pernicious disease that's ruthlessly taking you from me; I want to reach in and rip it from you. No chance of that. Not even the doctors can do that. Palliative treatment, that's all they've been able to offer us. The dark, insidious tendrils are hooked in too deep and they've spread too far. This is a battle you're not going to win. This is a battle we're _both_ going to lose. Selfishly, I want to shake you, to shout at you not to give in, to keep on fighting; to hold on for me, despite the pain.

"Do you know how much I love you?" I ask softly, and I can hear the raw catch in my voice. I hate that, too, the clear evidence of my weakness. You blink, and the hope that momentarily bursts inside me is like the sun breaking through the dark clouds on that day at the zoo. Maybe you're here with me, after all. Maybe you know I'm with you, that I'm holding your hand and trying to force my strength into you. I don't want to consider the possibility that it's just coincidence, an autonomous biological reflex. I love you, and you're leaving me. You're being mercilessly stolen from me.

I should have told you the truth a long, long time ago. I never perceived myself as the sort of person who lacked courage, but when it came to you… to us… I most definitely did. I never saw myself as being the one for you, the one you could and would love. We're so different in so many ways, you and I, and I never imagined for a moment that you'd actually see that as a positive thing. For so absurdly long I honestly didn't think I was… worthy… of you. That I could ever be what you wanted. I can remember – vividly – the bewildered look on your face when I finally admitted that to you in the small hours of a long, blissful summer night. You shook your head at me in complete amazement – but gently, kindly.

Peter and Grace. Grace and Peter.

It's going to be hard to go back to answering to only one of those names. We are Grace and Peter. We are Peter and Grace. Titles and surnames finally swept aside forever. One single entity. Even our former colleagues have become accustomed to using the joint epithet. Can anyone tell me how I'm supposed to go back to being just _me_ instead of _us__…_?

_Don__'__t __leave __me. __Please __God, __don__'__t __leave __me. __Not __now, __not __after __everything __we__'__ve __been __through..._ I scream the plea in my head, but I can't say it aloud. It would be far too cruel. I have to let you go, and I have to do it with dignity – for both of us.

You cough weakly, and I can hear the congestion rattling in your lungs. It won't be very long now, I don't think. Won't be long until the light goes out of your eyes forever and I'm on my own. You want to be buried, not cremated. You've been very clear about that. I think it's pure superstition on your part. Fear of the flames. We both know what fire can do to a human body. Then, we both know all about the pitiless mechanics of death and decomposition. It doesn't sit well with me, but I will bury you, because that's what you want. We'll have a quiet funeral, a private burial. I know I'll cry then, but it won't matter – there will be a lot of tears shed on that day, and not just by me.

"I love you," I say. It's important. The most important thing in the world. Time's fast running out on us. You're going alone into the dark, and I desperately want you to take those words with you. Of all the gifts we've ever given each other, those words are the most precious. It always surprised me how easily you could say them, but I never felt they were said flippantly. You meant them just as much as I did. Just as much as I _do_…

It wasn't supposed to be like this. I wasn't supposed to grow old – older – without you. Not after so very long, so very much. We were supposed to have our halcyon twilight years, our mature romance. You were supposed to be at my side so we could enjoy a disgraceful old age together. We were going to go to Egypt because you suddenly announced that you'd always wanted to see the pyramids. We were going to cruise the Nile and make love – disgracefully. We were going to be everything we should always have been.

I desperately want to cry and I still can't. There's a lump in my throat, a tight band around my chest, but my eyes are stubbornly dry.

You're dying and there's nothing I can do except hold your hand and wish things were different. You blink, you swallow, and I dare to believe that you're looking at me, that you can see me. Such beautiful eyes. Wise and kind and expressive, but there's a flatness to them now that I don't recognise.

"It's all right," I say again, like an idiot. How can it be all right? Nothing's ever going to be all right ever again. I reach out to stroke your cheek, and I say, "Relax. Everything's all right."

You take a breath, a wavering, broken breath. I think for a moment it's your last, but eventually it's followed by another. Shallow, though. So shallow. There's no strength left in you; this has been your last fight, and it's been hard and brutal and it's taken everything from you. This is it, this is the end. I know it, but I don't know if you do. I want to scream and shout and rage; I want to stamp my foot and yell at the world that this just isn't fair, but instead I simply tighten my grip on your hand a little more.

"Go to sleep," I tell you softly, and I watch as your eyes slowly close for the last time. I know you won't open them again. You take another shallow breath. A long, long pause. Another ghostly breath, and then, yes – inevitably – after an even longer pause, the very, very last breath.

This was not the death you wanted. You wanted a stupidly noble, heroic death. You wanted to go out kicking and screaming, yelling and spitting defiance. But as it is you die gently, and maybe that's all right, because beneath the all swagger and bravado and all the temper you always were a very gentle man.

I kiss you tenderly, and I wait for a few quiet, heavy minutes before I push the call button. When the nurse comes, I just say quietly, "He's gone. My husband's gone."

I'll bury you next to your son, just like I promised. And then Peter and Grace will just be Grace again.

This is not how it was supposed to be. And I finally start to cry.

_Goodbye, Peter…_

_- the end -_


End file.
